This petition calls for the immediate release of Professor Tariq Ramadan and affirms his right to dignity and due process.

Tariq Ramadan has not been convicted of a single crime and the French prosecution’s case rests on unsubstantiated claims and flimsy evidence.

On February 6, Prof. Ramadan was ordered by a judge to be held indefinitely, allowing the prosecution to continue to build its case against him.

The prosecution argued that he might attempt to flee the country, going to the extreme of forcing his detention in apparent disregard of Prof. Ramadan’s full cooperation with investigators so far.

It is worth noting that the reason Tariq Ramadan was even in France is because he voluntarily traveled to appear for questioning.

Yet, despite his show of goodwill and trust in the system, the judge considered no alternative option to imprisonment that would ensure he remain in the country during the ongoing investigation.

The unusually harsh treatment—indefinite detention in a solitary cell—by authorities points to the politicized nature of a case that suffers from serious weaknesses and multiple contradictions.

There is evidence of undisclosed involvement by high-profile political and judicial figures years before the case was brought forward—some of which is illegal under French law.

Due to the questionable manner in which this case has been handled, and the major discrepancies in the accusers’ stories, we have serious concerns about whether France’s judicial system can be a neutral arbiter of justice particularly as it pertains to Prof. Ramadan.

It is imperative to maintain the presumption of innocence especially as the prosecution and its allies in the mainstream media continue to advance dozens of unsubstantiated claims and distortions in an attempt to smear Prof. Ramadan.

The mainstream media’s nefarious role in this latest campaign has been especially damaging.

French and international media outlets continue to peddle misinformation and repeat verbatim the so-called “evidence” held by prosecutors without any attempt to verify their claims.

After decades of being vilified, suppressed, and attacked by top-ranking politicians as ‘the Muslim enemy’ of France, it comes as no surprise that authorities would be politically driven to take down a fierce critic of the French government’s unjust and discriminatory policies directed against poor people, Muslims, immigrants, and victims of its colonial rule.

There is clear evidence that anti-Muslim forces, represented by powerful media, political institutions, and islamophobes like Caroline Fourest and Antoine Sfeir—all of whom have viciously campaigned against Tariq Ramadan for years—are directly linked to this latest shameful attempt to destroy him.

The same accusations are part of an ongoing campaign that has attempted to demonize him ever since the beginning of his involvement as an intellectual and an activist in the early 1990s.

Prof. Ramadan and his ideas have never left people indifferent. But instead of confronting him in open debate, his ideological and political opponents have unfailingly used the most underhanded methods to discredit him as a Muslim intellectual and to discredit his thought.

Tariq Ramadan has been a voice for millions of disenfranchised peoples, including but not limited to, Muslims, worldwide.

Since his life’s work has been to champion the causes of justice, coexistence, and mutual understanding, it seems his adversaries sought to hijack a worthy women’s movement and tarnish the reputation of a renowned scholar for their own dark motives.

We condemn the politically motivated case against him, and demand his immediate release from detention and right to due process.